Fernbucket.

"How is 'Fernbucket' possibly considered hate speech?", I hear you asking.

"Fernbucket" is a cliche' "slur" or pejorative -- a trope I settled on a long time ago to illustrate the difference between words that are inseparable from a context of oppression and hatred (i.e. The N- Word; "hysterical", "you are a disease/parasite/insect/bedbug") from words that can be recruited to convey a context of oppression and hatred, to illustrate how both the context and culture matter, how intent matters, when determining what is and isn't a slur, what is and isn't hate speech.

Decades ago, some sharp wit I was at school with put down someone else in an argument with a comment along the lines of "You're as robust and as useful as a fernbucket -- if someone so much as moves you out of your sunbeam, you start dropping green tears."

That quickly became an in-group signifier and shorthand for everyone in the clique, and was even used to blackball someone from a yearbook committee -- "fernbucket" was written in pencil on their application by someone along the chain, and the school administration became involved.

This was before such things would have been turned over to lawsuits, and so it faded into obscurity except in the memory of the thirty or so of us who are still alive who were involved in that incident -- and in the second-hand memory of students I've taught using that as an example.

Is "Fernbucket" canonically a slur? No. Can it be used as a slur? Yes.

Because of how the English language itself operates, there can't ever be a prescribed line separating "acceptable speech" from "unacceptable speech", handed down from an Authority.

Instead, we must ascertain what someone's intent is.

I mentioned the N-Word, earlier; whether or not that word conveys an intent of denigration, hatred, humiliation ... or something else entirely ... that depends on shared culture and context between the speaker and the audience.

For this audience, and this topic for this subreddit, the culture and context will inescapably be one of offering offense.

The same applies, here, for "I'm White" -- it was a shibboleth of a harassment campaign, separated from the literal reading -- the flag of a group of abusers.

So long as the English language is a living language, and there are multiple different cultures using it, there will never be a hard and fast distinguishing line separating "These are acceptable" from "these are unacceptable". At best, there's a short list of terms that are always unacceptable for a given culture, and a slightly longer list of terms that need judgement applied to understand the intent of the author.

But there will always be the opportunity to avoid usages that are reasonably known to offer offense, and there will always be the requirement that people avoid from an intent to offer offense.

Source: https://np.reddit.com/r/ContraPoints/comments/df5ka0/same/f31hw9r/?context=3

Remember, do not interact directly with the fernbucket!